On a remote volcanic island south of Sicily, a renowned Italian architect creates his own personal Eden

Pergola

Pergola

The Italian island of Pantelleria lies between Sicily and Tunisia, closer to Africa than Europe. Scarcely known in the U.S., the Mediterranean outpost has had its share of celebrity residents, including French film icon Gérard Depardieu and Calypso, the nymph of Homer's Odyssey. Since the late 1970s Pantelleria has also been home, at least some of the time, to the internationally renowned Italian architect and designer Flavio Albanese.

The pergola on designer Flavio Albanese's compound on the island of Pantelleria contains a Tokyo Pop lounge chair by Tokujin Yoshioka and low-slung benches covered in pillows.

Dining Area

Dining Area

A dedicated modernist, Albanese creates environments that are angular, clean, and white—in a word, urban. But when he first saw the hardscrabble volcanic landscape of Pantelleria, he says, the effect was "as if I had been electrocuted. I had found my Shangri-la, my physical and spiritual Eden."

Albanese's photography collection, displayed in the dining area, includes images by Robert Mapplethorpe and Karl Lagerfeld. The chairs with cotton slipcovers are by Philippe Starck for Driade.